Superstar Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sat down with Stephen Colbert on Monday night to chat about a variety of subjects, including what it’s like trying to get work done during the long government shutdown, the misconceptions over her proposed 70 percent tax rate, and of course, her omnipresence on social media. At one point in the interview, the Late Show host asked Ocasio-Cortez about the resistance she’s been getting from established members of her own party as a newly inaugurated freshman member of Congress.
“[They’re] saying, ‘Wait your turn, you know, go slow, don’t ask for so much, so fast. Right now you’re new, wait your turn for everything and don’t make waves,'” Colbert pointed out. “I want to ask this question in a respectful manner, knowing also that you’re from Queens,” he continued. “On a scale of zero to some, how many f*cks do you give??” To the surprise of no one, Ocasio-Cortez does indeed have zero f*cks to give.
When later asked about the 70 percent tax rate, which Fox News continued to bemoan doom and gloom about, Ocasio-Cortez was more than happy to spell it out. “When we talk about a 70 percent marginal tax rate, it’s not on all of your income, it’s on your ten millionth and one dollar,” she explained. “So after you make $10 million dollars in one year, your dollars after that start to be progressively taxed at a much higher rate.”
Colbert then pointed out that this kind of tax rate was the norm up until the early ’80s. “This is not a new idea,” she agreed. “Under Republican President Dwight Eisenhower, we had 90 percent marginal tax rates.”
On a lighter note, earlier in the segment Colbert and Ocasio-Cortez bonded over pints of Ben & Jerry’s Ameri-Cone Dream, and she explained her approach to social media — including how she decides on who she’s going to call out on Twitter when she’s feeling feisty:
“I think it’s kind of an overlap of a couple of different factors. One, is it a notable person, usually are they verified, because I don’t want to just go after some innocent bystander here. But I think that if you’re verified on the platform, you have a blue check, you’re kind of signing up to be part of this public discourse.
So if you’ve got a blue check, you’re kind of in my mentions, if you’re being sassy in a way that I thin is unjustified, and then if I haven’t eaten in two to three hours? It’s like that combination.”
The hangries are no joke, even if you’re an elected official.